


sad, beautiful, tragic

by throughthemist



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Hopeful Ending, Love Letters, M/M, POV Steve Rogers, POV T'Challa (Marvel), POV Tony Stark, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Wakanda (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-22 12:39:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17662802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/throughthemist/pseuds/throughthemist
Summary: Long, handwritten note, deep in your pocket / I stood right by the tracks, your face in a locket / In dreams, I meet you in warm conversationGoing through the same event can mean different things to different peopleTony, Steve, and T'Challa post-Civil War





	sad, beautiful, tragic

**Author's Note:**

> oh so subtly inspired by the song 'sad, beautiful, tragic' by taylor swift 
> 
> i wanted to explore how each of these characters would feel immediately after CW, so sorry about the angst! it wasn't the happiest time for them all.  
> i hope that despite the angst there is still hope in each of their mini-stories!!

_Long, handwritten note, deep in your pocket._

It isn’t always the obvious things that pull the strongest emotions out of people and it was true of Tony too - after the pain, the anger, and the desperation had burned through his body and he was left lying in that bunker in the middle of Siberia waiting for Rhodey to rescue him, he just felt numb. 

Even as he lay there, bruised and bloodied with his armour creaking ominously around him, he could feel nothing. It was as if the hatred that had consumed him the moment he’d seen Steve move to shield Barnes with his own body had left with the pair of them, and he was lying with the leftovers. Quite literally too, he cast his eyes around the bunker and saw only a severed metal arm, wires still sparking and hissing, and Steve’s shield, because no matter what he’d said, it was still Steve’s, should he ever want it again. Tony wasn’t so sure. He’d known Steve for years but he’d never known this version of him. The version that was selfish, the version that was human. He had no idea what he’d do next. Probably go wrap his pet assassin up in bubble wrap and keep him the hell away from anyone who would ever lay a finger on him. Dick. What about him? What about the family they’d built together with the team? What, he was just going to leave them all, just like that? Well, only the ones who’d been stupid enough to not see through the Accords fiasco. Tony was sure Steve would go save the golden bunch who worshipped the ground ‘Captain America’ walked on. They sure as hell better like Steve Rogers too, because the good ol’ Captain wouldn’t be the one greeting them after this.  
Oh look, the anger was back. He felt like breaking something, like crying and screaming until his eyes burned red and his throat rubbed raw. But he didn’t even have the energy. Barely had the energy to breathe.

It wasn’t the obvious thing that he was feeling, Tony thought it was everything but the obvious thing. And he would continue to pursue that. Anything and everything to not have to watch that video play on repeat, repeat, repeat around his head. Anything. So he let the anger consume him.

It was a week after Siberia that the letter arrived.  
The only reason he opened it was bitter curiosity; he wanted to know what Steve thought an acceptable apology would be after everything he’d done.

_‘Tony._  
_I’m glad you’re back at the compound. I don’t like the idea of you rattling around a mansion by yourself.’_  
Tony scoffed. If he cared he would be here. 

_‘We all need family. The Avengers are yours; maybe more so than mine. I’ve been on my own since I was 18, I never really fit in anywhere, even in the army.’_  
He could practically hear the unwritten ‘except with Bucky.’ He suddenly, fiercely, hated the both of them. He trusted Steve, maybe he didn’t like him all that much sometimes, but he’d trusted him. And not just in battle, but in life too. Trusted his morality, his judgement - Tony admitted to himself his inability to make certain judgement calls a long time ago, but since New York Steve had always been there to guide him. To look over his shoulder and say “maybe don’t do that Tony.” (Not that he always listened, but still.) He wasn’t supposed to be the one to betray him. Not him. Not after everything they’d been through together. Wasn’t supposed to be the one to choose his parents’ murderer over him. What kind of morality was that?

_‘I know I hurt you Tony. I guess I thought by not telling you about your parents I was sparing you, but, I can see now that I was really sparing myself. And I’m sorry.’_  
Tony didn’t want to open that can of worms. He’d been successfully repressing that particular revelation and he was happy that way. Rhodey was the only one who knew. He had to tell him when he came to his rescue in Siberia. What other explanation could he have offered for the state he found him in? ‘We don’t agree on a political strategy and I don’t like his friend’ wasn’t quite good enough to explain how close they’d all come to killing each other. Wasn’t enough to explain the manic look in his eyes. Pepper was away on Stark Industries business, and anyway Tony didn’t want to throw this at her, not after everything else he’d made her deal with. His parents had been dead for years and he’d shouldered the burden fine, he’d just keep soldiering on. It would be fine.

Still, the nightmares didn’t let him forget everything. They didn’t let him forget the video, they didn’t let him forget the way Steve’s face had shuttered down and in his place the stoic, unfeeling Captain had stepped up to shield Barnes, and they didn’t let him forget the way Barnes’ eyes had screamed, how his body seemed to shut down for a second before he raised his gun in defence. Fight or flight. Like a trapped animal.  
_“I remember all of them.”_  
Sorry wasn’t enough.

_‘I know you’re doing what you believe in and that’s all any of us can do, all any of us should._  
He still stood by his earlier utterance ‘sometimes I want to punch you in your perfect teeth.’ A part of him wishes Steve were here in person, if only so he could get a few punches in. The smug bastard.

_‘So no matter what, I promise you: if you need us, if you need me, I’ll be there.’_  
Yeah, well. 'Easy to be supportive when you’ve already got what you want, isn’t it', he thought. Tony wasn’t sure he would ever want Steve to be there for him again, if it meant his allegiance would always be stronger to someone else, to the extent he would betray his friends for him.  
He’d heard the stories growing up - the daring Captain America and his loyal, wholesome sidekick Bucky Barnes.  
He’d hated them then and he hates them now.

He tucked the letter away, stuffed it into his jacket pocket to deal with later, and let Rhodey’s chatter distract him. The sound of his best friend’s laughter cut through his circling thoughts and he let himself smile, to look up and catch his eye, to keep talking, keep laughing, keep going on. He would call Pepper later, she was in Paris for a business conference, but maybe he could fly out and meet her, finally have that vacation they’d been talking about for months. He should check in with Happy too, and the spider-kid. Tony chuckled to himself when he remembered the voicemail Peter had left him after the airport fight.

_‘Mr Stark! Hi, it’s, it’s umm Peter?_  
_Anyway I just wanted to say thanks! For taking a chance on me and letting me meet your friends! I came home with a black eye and had to tell May I got it from fighting some kids at school. I don’t think she realised how honest I was being when I said one of the guys was huge. I mean massive. Still not really over that?_  
_Also who was the guy with the metal arm? Because dude! That was SO cool!! I already have like, I don’t know, fifteen ideas on how it was made and how to make a mini prototype for my next science fair. Think he’d let me take a look at it? Probably not. God, I’m sorry I’m rambling._  
_Anyway, the suit you gave me is amazing! Thank you!_  
_Happy’s checked in a few times, he keeps asking me if I’ve heard from you. I think he’s worried. Hope everything’s okay sir!_  
_Maybe see you soon? Or not, I don’t know._  
_Umm, bye I guess!”_

The kid was so young, filled with enthusiasm and the joy of learning and creating new things. He reminded Tony of himself a bit. At that age he’d still been testing the scope of his genius, constantly creating new things and chasing his father’s approval. He hadn’t yet faced rejection after rejection from the person who was supposed to care most, hadn’t yet become the rebellious teenager eager for his own brand of fame.  
He wouldn’t let that happen to Peter. He would be there for the kid like his father never was for him, he’d sworn that much after their first meeting.

Pepper would like him, he thought. She’d roll her eyes, sure, but he knew her heart and he knew she had an even bigger weakness for good people than he did.  
Together they would rebuild their family.

***

_I stood right by the tracks, your face in a locket_

It was deceptively peaceful, standing on the edge of a mountain in July. The sun was strong this high up, and Steve felt his skin warm despite the cool breeze that tickled his hair across his forehead. He was staring down, studying the flowers at his feet, because if he looked up he would be staring at a railway that had branded it’s image into his brain over 70 years ago, and even though it was his own feet that had brought him here, he wasn’t sure he was ready to see it yet. 

He took deep breaths, in the way Bruce had taught him to do if he was feeling overwhelmed, and rallied his thoughts before looking up. And there it was. Looking as innocent as the fresh flowers by his feet, the railway tracks glinted in the sun, as if they hadn’t been haunting him for decades, as if they hadn’t taken everything away from him. He suddenly had the irrational urge to fling his shield at the tracks, to rip them from the earth one by one, in an act of vengeance he knew would do nothing but calm the urge he had to see them fall into the valley below instead. Instead.

But Bucky was safe. That was what he had to tell himself. That was the only thought that got him to sit down among the flowers. Bucky is safe, everyone is safe, he repeated to himself; a mantra he repeated, and repeated, and repeated. Sam had taught him that one - when you can’t get the fear out of your head, hold on to the knowledge you know is true, he had said - and Steve did. He held on tight to the locket hung around his neck too, the locket that had been there since ‘37, and repeated his mantra. 

Steve’s trip had started the hour after Bucky was put back into cryofreeze. An hour was as long as he managed before the feelings he had been repressing came surging to the surface and there was nothing to do but yield to their advance and find somewhere distant, somewhere he could be alone. That the two of them, Bucky and him, both chose to hide from their feelings when the fight was over wasn’t lost on Steve. If the ‘30’s left him with anything, it was the urge to repress any and all strong emotions, to never show hurt, and it seemed that all the progress he had made in the last few years had crumbled and Steve couldn’t even manage a mere ‘I’m not okay’ to his friends before he bolted out the door of the Wakandan palace.

He’d lost everything once before and never thought it would happen again. And he really didn’t think it would happen again and be his fault, his actions that would bring his new family crashing down around him. Peggy’s death had fractured his world and Bucky’s reappearance had been an earthquake, so strong that the remainders of his emotional stability had splintered around his feet. The combination of the two in such close succession meant Steve was in the worst emotional state of his life - really, it wasn’t about the Accords at all. It wasn’t about choosing sides, and it certainly wasn’t about fighting with Tony. Steve had a lot of regrets, but he thought losing Tony so abruptly would now always be his biggest one.

His hands didn’t loosen their grip on the locket as Steve sank to the ground, sitting cross-legged with his head bowed to his chest as if in silent prayer. Steve hadn’t needed to think anything through before stepping up to protect Bucky; it was in his blood, programmed into his brain, to always be on his side, and this time was no different. He truly believed it wasn’t Bucky’s fault. Still, watching that video had been hard, to see what they’d turned his best friend into, the friend who was never a fighter, so completely gone that he didn’t even recognise the faces of his targets as friends. 

Now he had time to think about it, he couldn’t imagine the pain Tony had been going through, and honestly? He hadn’t tried to. That was on him. He’d been selfish and desperate and angry. The loyalty and focus he’d been praised for so many times had always had the potential to be his downfall, and they were that day. His brain was one track minded and no matter what he did, no matter how much time had passed, that track was always ‘protect Bucky’. Sam said it probably stemmed back to Bucky falling from the train, and the guilt that had never left, but Steve knows it’s been this way for a lot longer than that.

Steve pried the catch on the locket open to see two ageing black and white photos staring back up at him, one of his mother and the father he’d never got to meet, and one of him and Buck grinning up at the camera, aged 17. It had been a gift from his mother, who’d pressed it into his hands and said, “hold onto the good times, Stevie, and keep only happy things over your heart.”  
The locket hadn’t left his neck since.

After waking up from the ice, the locket had provided comfort in a way nothing else could. Everything had been ripped from him, and even the letter that held Bucky’s final words to him had disintegrated into nothing in the frigid chill of the ocean, but the locket had stayed.  
Perhaps it was for the best, that the letter had disappeared. Steve was sure it would have been plastered on every newspaper front page if they’d actually managed to recover it. And it wasn’t like he needed the tangible feel of the letter to remember exactly what was written on it. The words were just one more thing permanently branded into his brain.

_‘I’m sorry._  
_I don’t know what else to say because you know the rest and I won’t make this harder for either of us by rehashing all that now. But just know that my every moment in this god forsaken war has been wishing I was at home with you. Funny thing is, if I could take us there at the drop of a hat I don’t think I could, even now. I’m not a fighter by nature Steve, you know that, but we’re fighting for what’s right here and that’s something good, something I know we’re both proud of._  
_Still can’t help the part of me that wants to go back home, to our crappy apartment that you probably wouldn’t even fit inside now, and just - just live. Slog away at the docks all day and come back to you sitting at your drawing table with graphite all on your hands and smudges of it down your face, looking like all I’d ever need, all I’d ever want. Hell, maybe we could even get a dog - not like you’d sneeze to death by petting one now you’re all jacked up on super-soldier whatever._  
_So much has changed, I bet if I dragged you out to the dancehall now you’d have the time of your life dancing with anyone and everyone who wanted to._  
_Point is: I don’t regret any of it Stevie. Not loving you and not being drafted to fight in this war. Only thing I regret is leaving you to fight it without me._  
_Know that I will have fought with everything I had to stay by your side._  
_I hope you can forgive me in time._  
_I love you._  
_Bucky’_

It was as if the ink on the page had held everything they’d kept precious between them, everything they’d built over two decades of friendship, of devotion, of loyalty. Of love. What they had was innocent, just a need to stand by each other, when all that mattered was the home they’d created in each other, the shared memories that would come back to haunt them.

Steve smiled and let the flowers tickle at his hands where they were planted in the grass, as he thought back to that dingy apartment he and Bucky had barely survived in. The memories seemed so real in his head it was almost as if they appeared before his eyes, emotions welled up in him so strong, and even though he’d lost so much in the previous few days he somehow just knew that everything would work itself out. That he’ll come back when Bucky calls him, just like always.

There was no need to say goodbye.

***

_In dreams, I meet you in warm conversation_

The fight was over.

T’Challa had thrown himself into the fight with pleasure after the bombing. He’d always worked best having a sense of purpose, a goal, an endgame to work towards. Never before had that goal been to end another man’s life with his own hands. Never before had he had to watch the life drain out of his loved one’s eyes while he watched on, helpless. 

When he’d found out that Sergeant Barnes was innocent he’d been angry. Not because he’d lost his goal, but because he’d allowed himself to feel only the fury of vengeance, and in doing so had lost an integral part of himself. He wasn’t an angry man, a fighter with bloodlust. He was a grieving son.

A king.

He didn’t think he’d ever be ready.

In a sick kind of way he envied the Sergeant’s choice of going into cryofreeze. He knew it wasn’t a healthy desire, to sleep so he didn’t have to feel, but with the responsibility of a nation pressing steadily on his shoulders and the grief of losing his father still stowed away in his heart, it was pretty much the only thing he wanted. At least it would give him a semblance of peace. But when he watched the Captain’s reaction, the mix of sadness and fear in his eyes, he knew he couldn’t leave his family like that, couldn’t leave them to feel every pain in his absence.

He’d tried to be strong for Shuri and his mother, but after the formal greeting with the guard, when they were finally together as a normal family, he got the chance to look them in the eyes and he saw his own pain reflected back at him. They held onto each other, Shuri sandwiched between him and his mother in a rare display of vulnerability that for once didn’t hide her age. T’Challa had wanted nothing more than to hold on tight to his family in that moment, but in the same way he had to be careful not to hold on too tight lest his new-found Panther strength hurt them, he knew he had to find an inner strength to show his people. He had to show them that he could stand on his own, to not hide behind his family, to be the king they deserve.

So he carried on.

He endured the traditional crown challenge at the waterfall and emerged victorious, heart and mind split, body bruised and raw. He knew what came next.

Taking the heart herb was as intense as before, his senses overloaded as each part of himself became heightened, stronger, newer, despite the calm ambience of the room. T’Challa shuddered as the effects took place within him, cognizant of what followed and half terrified, half desperate for the sand to cover him and for the journey to begin.

He opened his eyes to beauty. 

Every child in Wakanda hears about the Ancestral Plane, but few get to see it with their own eyes. It doesn’t disappoint; even a child’s imagination couldn’t come up with the way the purple sky seems to glow, the feline grace of the panthers in the trees, the warm air that picks up the scent of the flowers.  
And the most beautiful sight of all - his father, walking toward him, arms extended to embrace.

It was as if the chaos of the last week settled, the storm in his mind finally abating and leaving peace in its wake as he clung onto him. He hadn’t held his father since the bombing, when he’d leapt in front of him to save him but was too late, too late and all he’d had to protect was a body and a country, too late and all he’d been able to picture was the look on his little sister’s face when he’d have to tell her. Too late.

“Stand up. You are a king.”

To hear the words in his Baba’s stern voice was hard. His Baba, the man he had looked up to his whole life, the man who ruled his country with a fairness and a grace he couldn’t possibly emulate. Didn’t he know his son wasn’t ready, couldn’t he tell from his eyes that he needed time, just a day or two, to settle into this new role?

“I’m not ready to be without you.” T’Challa choked out, emotions getting the better of him. It was cathartic to voice his innermost fears in a place where the outside world couldn’t judge him. He would be strong for them after, but surely he deserved this. He only wished Shuri and his mother could be here to see Baba too. It wasn’t fair that they weren’t allowed. None of this was fair.

“You are a good man. And it’s hard for a good man to be king.”

Baba’s parting words stuck with him, buzzing around his brain. Something about them didn’t sit right with T’Challa - it was as if his father was saying it was easy for him to be a good king because he wasn’t a good man.  
But how could that be? He was the best man he’d ever known. 

The comfort of hearing his father’s voice stayed with T’Challa over the following weeks, the feel of his arms wrapped around him a phantom ache during the darkest moments of grief. What he wouldn’t give to have him back.

What he did have was the crown, still a heavy weight on his shoulders, now offset by the joy he took in seeing his little sister excel in creating new and increasingly stylish technology. He had his mother, steadfast in her love for him, the country he’d do anything to protect, and Nakia and a second chance at love.


End file.
